Jayme Fortune – Globe Opinion (2001)

Opening your part with two bloody ankles sets the effort level at high.

Jayme Fortune is one of those extremely talented skaters who falls victim to the politics of geography. Hailing from Portland, Oregon, a city with a major skate scene only a few hours North of California, Jayme suffered the distance and the miserable climate in relative silence.

You see, the skateboarding industry has operated out of sunny Southern California since the beginning of time and up until the mid-Two Thousands, anywhere else on the world map was considered secondary or even tertiary to this all powerful all consuming mecca. Portland managed to build a reputation for itself – literally! – thanks to the Burnside skatepark project that re-ignited a fire for skaters to pour their own concrete and design their own ramps. The street scene never really got the same recognition, and as I mentioned earlier, poor weather conditions without cover meant a lot of the street skaters were stuck in limbo.

Out of this melancholy came Jayme Fortune who was pushing the limits of technical skating with new ideas of how to approach rails, ledges and gaps. In this Globe Opinion video part, Jayme backside nollie flips a double set, nollie noseslides through a crooked handrail and frontside halfcab backside nosebluntslides a bench in a line.

Teleport yourself back to 2001 and read that list of tricks again.